LCFCJohn

It basically feels like due to how we treat young players, and our fan bases attitude towards them, that’s him done. Even if he doesn’t feature again until the start of next season, you’ll get people banging on about the Southampton game like the Huddersfield one is used as a stick to beat Nelson with. He shouldn’t have just been thrown in to the wolves like that. Just like how Nelson shouldn’t have been banished for months and thrown back in from nowhere. I called it that Nelson would get injured and guess what? His place should have been minutes off the bench to give Ricardo a break and like someone says above, let him get the rash youth challenges out his system late in a game. He did some good stuff. He stood up to his man a couple of times, in similar positions both Thomas and Kristiansen have been beaten and left standing. He got forward well and supported Mavididi. He got in the box and could have bagged. His first booking was all on Fatawu. Yes it was dangerous in the 5th minute but Man City etc have done that for years and I’ve rarely seen the first challenge like that get booked. Ward couldn’t wait to get the card out. Second one is silly but he’s 18! How are kids supposed to adapt to first team football if not given chances? Or if they get banished after one mistake! And importantly, it didn’t change the outcome. The game was gone by the time he was sent off. He didn’t lost us the game like Faes and Vestergaard have done numerous times.

Ayew, Soumare and Daka. Although if at least one done end up staying on a new contract I’ll be genuinely shocked.

Great balanced post. I agree with the last paragraph. Given Ricardo’s situation, Aluko should have been given minutes and integrated in at right back against sides less likely to cause so many problems. Throwing him in out of his main position, away at Southampton was throwing him to the wolves (the ones with some bite not the ones from Wolverhampton).

It absolutely did Maybe a minority but on the match thread there were people who could hardly hide their glee to say ‘told you so’ about giving him a chance!

That’s not the way on here, come on! You have to laugh at him, pile on and say he’s crap and non-league standard. If you are going to make silly comments like pointing out he is 18, chucked in with no prior minutes away at an inform Southampton, one of the best sides in the league, you are not reading the room And we don’t take positive observations about things he did well either.

Or a guy who can finally see a way out come the summer. It must feel good to be looking forward to escaping this club. Unfortunately we as fans can’t as we are emotionally tied.

We will lose this. They were picking apart Sheff Weds at will and poor finishing stopped that being 6/7. Compare that to how hard work we made of Wednesday. I also don’t rate us as much, if at all, better than Wednesday defensively so Utd should be walking through us with ease.

In the match thread there were posts about playing your players, hope you’re happy with laughing emoji’s and such. People obviously against giving the youth players a chance and taking great delight in them failing. Likely the same people who wouldn’t shut up for months about Nelson’s first half at Huddersfield and probably also the same people who say Vestergaard is a good defender at this level and has been our best player this season etc.

Might as well add Aluko to the sale list now. Fans won’t give him another chance now so he’s done.

Despite the game itself, the most embarrassing thing is some of our ‘fans’ actually celebrating Aluko getting sent off to claim they are right not to want youth players in! Embarrassing and pathetic to go with everything else wrong with this club.

I really really did not want to think that there would be a link between the ongoing issues with the PL and EFL and the officiating we would receive this season but it’s getting harder and harder by the game, to ignore it.

I mean if that was one of ours on theirs, it would have been a free kick. Just saying… Anyway, game over. Another ref has ruined the game.

Fatawu is a liability tonight.

Idiotic by Fatawu and causes that for Aluko!

I think both centre back and mid are weak for us but end of the day, we will have to shift before we can bring in. I will die on the hill that Faes and Vestergaard are shit even at this level. But yes, I agree with the point that the full backs, as well as not contributing to a strong defence, are also offering nothing in attack.

We have a highly regarded right back knocking on the door in Aluko. There is no way he could put in performances as bad as Thomas/VK. Makes more sense than people saying play Aluko at left back anyway. He could be integrated rotated with Ricardo. Many of these positions are stacked (numbers wise) anyway, so once again, it becomes about who we can shift before we think of incomings.

Left back is priority yeah. Striker as well. I do think strikers more than other positions even, the targets would vary so much depending on the league we are in. I’m not sure the best approach. I can’t see us committing to permanent transfers anyway, so maybe a James type deal. Right back, do we just put our faith in Aluko and see if he is up to it? We have a few right backs on the books (Coulibaly as well as youngsters). I’d rather do this and assess in the summer. The positions you haven’t mentioned are centre back and centre mid. The problem with both these positions is that we have too many that we need rid of before we can add. Vestergaard, Faes, Winks, Soumare, Skipp. None of them are contributing. I suppose you could argue that with 3 strikers, we are bloated in that position, just with nobody who can consistently put the ball in the net!

Did Middlesbrough and Swansea coordinate announcements or something? Both at 1pm on the dot!

This sums up these sections of our fanbase A “cult” in football refers to a group of supporters whose loyalty to an owner or figurehead becomes unconditional, leading them to defend decisions and overlook failings because their idealised view of that person outweighs objective assessment of the club’s situation.

Rodgers legacy that! Our short comings are so obvious and so easy to fix, it’s incredible that we haven’t done so. Obviously all stems back to Aiyawatt who has allowed what Pearson built, where we were leaders in areas of sports science and fitness, scouting and psychology, to be pulled apart. It feels arrogant that we don’t think fitness is important, we don’t think a strong mentality it’s important. It doesn’t matter if our players are perceived to be superior (which they aren’t by any measure other than their pay packets), these are the reasons nearly every team we have played has looked better than us.

Page is definitely above that level. Would be a waste to send him there. He looked fine for us at this level earlier in the season. League 1 maybe. Don’t know about Evans.

It was probably more down to BDR coming in and James dropping into his stronger position to be fair. It gave us a better balance and of course, both scored. Don’t think I am advocating for Skipp over Winks. Purely that neither offer us anything at this point. I think James deserves a better partner altogether in the middle to be fair.

I never said he’s not a better player. I said he is not offering us anything. Sometimes it’s not about the ‘best’ player but the team. Apparently many of our players are meant to be better than their counterparts at other clubs but that’s not been the reality on the pitch. Our form (results wise) dropped off after a bright start when Winks was brought back in following the transfer window. He was good under Enzo but has been crap since.

It’s not as if Winks is adding anything. At least we seem to have a decent record across the season when Skipp has been involved. Not that I’m particularly bothered. Neither of them add anything much but one of them should be dropped for James to play deeper.

I never apportioned blame solely on Vestergaard. I commented that as the left sided centre back, when you look at where the goal was scored from, that is the space occupied by the left centre half/left back. So you have to look at Thomas. You have to look at Faes as he was closer. But this also means Vestergaard was out of position (as was Faes). It was all of them who didn’t deal with it.